http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/13948/Opening-Up-the-Cantonments-Army-in--the-Cross-Hairs-of-the-Right

Opening up the cantonments: Army in the cross hairs of the right

The latest buzz on social media circles of the military is the opening up of cantonments, the cloistered military administered spaces, to ‘poor bloody civilians’, supposedly at the behest of the novice defence minister. Interestingly, there is little mention of the this in the media though.

After the brazen and horrific attacks on cantonments (and an airbase) in J&K, the military has been understandably rather paranoid on security of its families residing in the cantonments. It turned these into fortresses along lines recommended by a committee headed by a former vice chief, using up Rs. 14,097 crores on perimeter security.

A longstanding grievance in surrounding communities has been that cantonments had over the years progressively been placed off limits, with the army citing security. This limited thoroughfares, forcing circuitous routes on harried civilian commuters. In one instance, in Pune, a village on the outskirts was cut off from the city by the College of Military Engineering walling itself off, making villagers reportedly take a 30 km wide detour. Naturally, the courts were marshalled by the affected people, such as in Secunderabad, home to one of the larger cantonments.

As cities surrounded cantonments on outskirts, the military’s breathing space was throttled little by little. Further, the military, fearing covetous eyes of defence ministers with a reputation for land deals, such as, for instance, Sharad Pawar, fenced off its land, imposing on communities historically living within cantonment limits and those cheek-by-jowl with the boundaries. Hurriedly, the military converted golf courses into night training areas or some such innovative cover. Golf course memberships were much in demand in the neighbouring civilian elite.

Also, apart largely from north India, it’s members were a relatively alien presence elsewhere, temporarily forced to reside alongside people of a different look, colour and language. Walling themselves in was a rough and ready answer. One good thing to come out of this self-incarceration has been that cantonments now account for the green lungs of unplanned metropolisis that have since grown up around them. Even this added to the enticing allure of cantonments, with neighbours wanting a breath of the fresh air.

Almost as if in response to the grievances of communities in vicinity of cantonments the defence ministry reportedly suddenly lifted the barricades, opening up garrisons to sundry morning walkers and those out for a tree-lined short cut. It would seem the ruling party is out for a set of additional votes, which by the yardstick that it is ruling in some 20 states does not really need.

This begs the question then as to what motivated the order.

Perhaps the regime best knows that the security measures were never needed in first place, other than in J&K. The jihadist threat was never what it was made out to be, inflated by cultural nationalists in the media and propagated by a communalized intelligence community. The spate of exonerations of Muslims incarcerated in terror cases for lack of evidence is proof. That saffron terrorists have also been left off suggests where terror – taken as Muslim perpetrated – originated. The purpose was polarization, to pave the way for a messiah to centerstage from his provincial perch. Therefore, for a government aware of this to call off the pretense of a Muslim threat to its security forces billets, now that it has been milked for all its worth – the levels of Muslim marginalization becoming rather embarrassing - is explicable.

For its part, the army - that otherwise surely knows as much - was quick to use the opportunity to preserve its islands in urban sprawls. In quick time it turned the greenery and training grounds into concrete under accelerated housing schemes, needed for recuperation of soldiery before being relaunched back into India’s largest and longest lasting security commitment, J&K.

The army kept up the charade, investing in guard towers and sandbagged bunkers for those garrisons in sight of Muslim localities (such as the author’s locality down south). The southern army commander opined as recently as April this year that anti-nationals have appeared as the new challenge across India. He took care not to define who he meant, knowing which community the label would stick to.

He was referring to the expectation in the army of being interdicted enroute when off from a cold start in cantonments to launch pads near the border. It is no wonder then that the social media lauds the purported go-slow by Southern Command, under the guise of reviewing security concerns, on the order to throw open the doors of cantonments.

His action has been inadvertent. Here the answer is only superficially a conspiracy theory. The right-wing government wants more visibility into the cantonment, to be able to see what is brewing in those restricted spaces.

Advisedly, it does have a worry. The army is the last institution standing. Outside the sarkari remit, the Cobrapost revelations on youtube has shown up the state of institutions, in this case the fourth estate. This explains why the storm in the military’s social media teacup on this issue has not found its way into the media this time round.

The ruling party best knows what can originate in a cantonment. It has within its ministerial ranks a general who reputedly spooked South Block bureaucrats by ordering a movement of a military outfit, on the eve of a court case hearing he had foisted on the defence ministry. Quite sensibly, the ruling party does not want to be in a similar situation.

Increased visibility into the cantonment, the democratization of its reserved spaces, its invasion by all and sundry and the normalization of its landscape with noise and pollution, insures against the cantonment keeping any secrets.

This is part of a wider assault on the military. The salacious book on army wives and a movie with a rising star in lead role on corruption in the army are not unrelated. The right wing’s head honcho’s unfavourable comparison of the army with his storm troopers, in relation to mobilization timings, was to put the army in its place in the new schema.

The army needs to lose its sheen, so that it is vulnerable to subversion from within and control from without. Merely placing an amiable chief at the helm, under the doctrine of ‘relative ease of doing business with’ as voiced by a propagandist of the previous defence minister, is not enough.

That India has a subordinate military is not enough, especially when the complexion of India is to change after the coming elections. Unfortunately, with the opposition bouncing back after the Karnataka elections, the election outcome has acquired a question mark. Compulsions of polarisation, a Chanakyan turn at the elections or a majoritarian turn thereafter, all could lead to a Constitution-under-threat backlash. The military could turn bulwark of an India as it should be and must remain. It needs being neutralized well before that.

http://www.epw.in/journal/2018/21/strategic-affairs/doval-scorecard.html

The Doval Scorecard

On his nomination as National Security Adviser (NSA), Ajit Doval had acquired a larger-than-life image. Hagiographical accounts of his derring-do as an intelligence officer in all of India’s national security predicaments since the 1971 war—including Mizoram, Punjab, Pakistan, Kashmir and Kandahar—have featured him in a stellar role (Gokhale 2014). He remained indefatigable in retirement as founding head of the Vivekananda International Foundation, where his think tank provided respectability to the penetration of cultural nationalism into the strategic discourse (Donthi 2017). While at it, he comprehensively stalled any national security initiatives of the United Progressive Alliance—such as its last gasp in reaching out to Pakistan in 2013—by leading Delhi’s strategic community in warning against any such initiative (Vivekananda International Foundation 2013). By early 2014, he had staked a claim, laid out in lectures across the country, on heading the national security apparatus; the more (in)famous claim being during a lecture in which he warned that Pakistan stood to lose Baluchistan if another attack like the 26/11 attack in Mumbai were to happen (The Fearless Indian 2014). It was not a surprise then that one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s very first decisions on reaching 7, Race Course Road, was to appoint Doval as the NSA.

As the NSA, Doval hit the ground running. Modi’s foreign policy coup of bringing together the heads of neighbouring countries, Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif among them, is attributed to him. It did not take long for criticism to catch up with him. Critics had it that he was—true to his reputation—tactically agile, but strategically untested. Unfortunately for him, the skill set that goes with a proactive intelligence profile, does not necessarily lend itself to a sound performance at the strategic level (Ahmed 2015). For instance, though Sharif’s presence at the Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt presaged an opening up to Pakistan, by the end of the season, the follow-on foreign secretary-level talks were called off. Instances of smart about-turns continued. Barely had Modi landed back in India from visiting Sharif at his Raiwind farmhouse on Christmas eve in 2015, the possibilities of the peace process resuming after this outreach were spiked yet again a week later, with India referencing a terrorist attack on the Pathankot airfield.

Even so, the actions in the national security field were such and so fast in coming, that some had it that there was a new national security doctrine at play. While some dubbed this the “Doval doctrine” (Noorani 2015), others—mindful of the overlord—called it the “Modi doctrine” (Chaulia 2016). The high-water mark of the national security reset was the “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control (LoC) in late September 2016. The opposition was quick to point out that these had precedent, the difference being that earlier governments in place did not seek to profit politically from such strikes. In short, little had changed, but the attendant perception-management exercise had been taken to new levels. This owed less to national security factors than to the electoral calculus of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Modi and Amit Shah.

This political need of the BJP, which has kept it in election mode all through its tenure, stems from its deep linkages with the right-wing organisations headed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Their aim is to profit from Modi’s sway over voters for a cultural-nationalism inspired reset of India, one distanced from an inclusive, plural, democratic, and secular India. Democratic gains by the BJP covering all regions in India, the latest being inroads into the south by their electoral showing in Karnataka, place this within sight.

Alongside, a hollowing out of institutions is underway. The state of the ruling party is itself a case in point, as brought out by an old-timer in the party who has since left, Yashwant Sinha (2018). Taking the cue, the police, bureaucracy, and media have keeled over. Even the armed forces have not been spared, with the army’s proverbial line-of-succession that is predicated on seniority being rudely tweaked to elevate Bipin Rawat—who had developed a working relationship with Doval—over two of his seniors to head it (Dutta 2016). The judiciary is currently in the cross hairs, perhaps with a view to making it an inert institution, which would enable the Modi government to trifle with the basic structure of the Constitution sometime into its next tenure should it win the 2019 elections (Business Standard 2018).

What this enervation of institutions spells for national security is rather obvious. National security is a function of the good health of these institutions and their pulling together. Therefore, in evaluating the Doval tenure as head of the national security establishment, it would not do to restrict the assessment to how India has managed its external and internal security environment alone. Doval’s place in history needs examining against what his role has been in bringing about a denouement today, in which India stands vulnerable to a majoritarian assault on its fundamentals. To his clients in the right-wing conglomerate, Doval has by this yardstick succeeded admirably.

Not in National Interest

But, first, we take a look at Doval’s exertions in the field of mainstream national security in relation to Pakistan and China. Even while India professed to be matching up to China, it suddenly backed down. Take, for instance, the “informal summit” with China at Wuhan last month. It is a step back for India, intended to paper over the Doklam episode where Chinese activity has reportedly continued. With the informal summit, Modi has bought some time by negotiating a lull in the election year. The army has been asked to moderate its responses on the Line of Actual Control (Som 2018). A former military adviser in the national security system notes, “Only a calculation based on the dynamics of domestic politics can yield a suggestion to keep quiet [on Chinese aggression]” (Menon 2018a). One advantage of stability on the China front is an increase in the possibility of mounting pressure on Pakistan. A climbdown on the China front does away with a two-front problem, enabling pressure to be mounted on the Pakistan front. India espied an opportunity in the pressure on Pakistan promised by United States President Donald Trump. This, however, has not quite materialised and the Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani has gone on to offer an olive branch to the Taliban. India appears to have since fallen in line. Not only has there been a drawdown in firing across the LoC, but there has been a resumption of Track II confabulations. Under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, India and Pakistan are to undertake military exercises together for the first time. Doval has taken care to keep a line open with his Pakistani counterpart, Nasser Khan Janjua. In short, Doval is taking no chances of an India–Pakistan crisis emerging and escalating to an inherently uncertain conclusion in the election year.

Implicit in India’s allocation of the lowest amount for defence in relation to its gross domestic product since the 1962 war (Unnithan 2018) is the message to both adversaries that, at least for this year, India would be less assertive. This is in stark contrast to the tough-on-defence image that the government aspired to and attempted to foster over the past four years. The about-turn on both fronts suggests that the electoral interests of the ruling party are now the national security imperative, and not the national interest.

Internal security initiatives have also been taken with an eye for votes. In Kashmir, Operation All-Out over the past two years has led to the killing of some 275 alleged terrorists in operations reminiscent of the 1990s (Kashmir Times 2018). The dividend from the simultaneous admi­nistration of the carrot-and-stick approach—the union government-appointed special representative’s periodic forays into Jammu and Kashmir and the military template—has not been obvious.

India could well have arrived at the possibility of peace without having gone down the route of confrontation over the last four years. The centre has reluctantly, and only partially, accepted the proposal for a ceasefire during Ramzan made by the chief minister after an all-party meet. For its part, though defiant on the LoC, Pakistan has signalled its readiness for dialogue (Baruah 2018). If India’s strategy was to display resolve through its use of force, then it is time to capitalise on the strategy. The hypothesis here that India’s security policy is driven by the BJP’s electoral calculus suggests that the potential for a peace process that the Ramzan ceasefire has will go unrealised. Instead, this juncture will be milked for showing India’s peaceful intent, useful both internationally and domestically to obscure that its ruling party needs to keep both problems alive for their internal political utility. Since national security has been allowed to be usurped for political and ideological ends, Doval is answerable.

Cultural Nationalism

The benefits of cultural nationalism—read religious majoritarianism­—for national security are not self-evident. The contrary is more likely the case, in terms of the threat of authoritarianism, impact on constitutional governance, and marginalisation of minorities. A snapshot of the impact on the three can be seen through the prism of the rule of law. The recent discharge of Maya Kodnani in the case related to the Gujarat carnage of 2002 and that of Swami Aseemanand in the Mecca Masjid blast case shows how perpetrators close to, and possibly acting at the behest of the Sangh Parivar, have been let off. Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Purohit, a leader of the saffron terror outfit, Abhinav Bharat, has been granted bail and has rejoined the army. Clearly, the plea made in 2013 by police officer D G Vanzara, when incarcerated in jail, that he and fellow cops had been abandoned appears to have been heeded by the right quarter, by Modi, who has been likened to a “god” by Vanzara (Vanzara 2013).

The crowning case is that of BJP President Amit Shah in relation to the encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and custodial killing of his wife. Even the possibilities stemming from the manner of death of Justice B H Loya, the Special Central Bureau of Investigation judge earlier handling the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case, could not make a dent, even though it led to open dissent in the upper judiciary. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) head, Sharad Kumar, under whom the agency dragged its feet in all such cases, is slated to join the National Human Rights Commission on retirement (Bhatnagar 2018). The subversion of institutions from within is the primary internal security threat taking place on Doval’s watch.

The implications need spelling out. The RSS supremo, Mohan Bhagwat, let on that he could mobilise a militia within three days (Tewary 2018). In effect, saffronite foot soldiers can graduate to becoming storm troopers in short order. The disruption at Aligarh Muslim University on the day of a function at which the former vice president was to speak is indicative of such power and its outcome. The invasion of the makeshift open-air Friday prayer of Muslims in Gurugram by majoritarian outfits over successive weeks, under the watch of a benign BJP government, is another example.

In short, there is a parallel structure of force in place. A shift in the monopoly over the use of force from the state to such structures is underway as the state apparatus kowtows to the parallel power centres. If this elides the head of India’s national security establishment, Doval, it is not because he is oblivious or merely complicit, but is more likely the chief steward. The profile of Doval carried in the Caravanprovides a clue (Donthi 2017). He is quoted arguing that there is a “higher rationale” in which the rights-based rule of law must yield to the welfare of the collective. For him, and in the cultural-nationalist perspective, the national interest is that of the majority community.

Finally, with the current government having barely a year left in its term, the jury is likely to remain out on the new-fangled Defence Planning Committee (DPC) with Doval as its head. The DPC has been charged with, among and as a precursor to other things, the task of ­formulating a national security strategy. This amounts to Doval inadvertently writing his own appraisal since it testifies to India’s dysfunctional national security system having remained in place over the last four years, though the BJP came to power claiming that it could best revitalise it. As remedy, it has resorted, rather late in its term, to collapsing policy, strategy, and planning into one package in the form of the DPC for the sake of political optics (Menon 2018b).

More importantly, Doval’s ultimate test is yet to come. In case his mentor, Modi, is increasingly beleaguered, it is widely expected that the mandir card will be played. It is not without purpose that the opposition had requested the apex court to postpone its judgment on the issue to after the elections. The god-man Sri Sri Ravishankar has predicted a Syria-like situation in case the verdict goes against the claim of one of the two communities, taking care not to name the community (Joshi 2018). Any pronouncement on Doval can only follow from how the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision turns out. Though it is unlikely that Doval will baulk at this potential culmination point of the Hindutva takeover of India, how he handles the Hindutva machinery may yet be an opportunity to vindicate, if not redeem, himself.

References

Ahmed, Ali (2015): “India: Dissecting the Doval Doctrine,” Eurasia Review, 7 August, http://www.eurasiareview.com/07082015-india-dissecting-the-doval-doctrine-oped/.

Baruah, Amit (2018): “Pakistan Army Ready to Join Dialogue Process with India,” Hindu, 17 May, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ready-to-join-dialogue-with-india-pak-army/article23905872.ece.

Bhatnagar, G V (2018): “National NGO Network Opposes Ex-NIA Chief’s Proposed Appointment as NHRC Member,” Wire, 16 May, https://thewire.in/rights/national-ngo-network-opposes-ex-nia-chiefs-proposed-appointment-as-nhrc-member.

Business Standard (2018): “BJP Will Make Major Assault on Constitution if It Controls Both Houses, Says Shashi Tharoor,” 8 February, http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/bjp-planning-major-assault-on-constitution-shashi-tharoor-ians-interview-118020800551_1.html.

Chaulia, Sreeram (2016): The Modi Doctrine: Foreign Policy of India’s Prime Minister, New Delhi: Bloomsbury India.

Donthi, Praveen (2017): “Undercover: Ajit Doval in Theory and Practice,” Caravan, 1 September, http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/ajit-doval-theory-practice.

Dutta, Saikat (2016): “Gen Rawat’s Appointment as Army Chief Is in Line with Modi’s Aggressive Foreign Policy,” Scroll.in, 19 December, https://scroll.in/article/824529/rawats-appointment-as-army-chief-is-in-line-with-modis-aggressive-foreign-policy.

Gokhle, Nitin (2014): “Ajit Doval: The Spy Who Came In from the Cold,” NDTV, 30 May, https://www.ndtv.com/people/ajit-doval-the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-cold-564734.

Joshi, Padmaja (2018): “If Not Resolved Amicably, Janmaboomi Dispute Can Turn India into Syria: Sri Sri,” India Today, 5 March, https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/if-not-resolved-amicably-janmaboomi-dispute-can-turn-india-into-syria-sri-sri-1182073-2018-03-05.

Kashmir Times (2018): “Forces in J&K to Stop Ops during Ramzan,” 17 May, http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=79199.

Menon, Prakash (2018a): “Doklam—India’s Silence Is a Strategic Blunder,” Indian National Interest, 20 March, https://nationalinterest.in/doklam-indias-silence-is-a-strategic-blunder-3c172516ae98.

— (2018b): “The Problems of Defence Planning,” Pragati, 16 May, https://www.thinkpragati.com/opinion/4527/the-problems-of-defence-planning/.

Noorani, Abdul Ghafoor (2015): “The Doval Doctrine,” Frontline, 13 November, http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/the-doval-doctrine/article7800194.ece.

Sinha, Yashwant (2018): “Dear Friend, Speak Up,” Indian Express, 17 April, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/narendra-modi-budget-economy-rapes-foreign-policies-yashwant-sinha-5139969/.

Som, Vishnu (2018): “’No Aggressive Patrolling’ Along China Border, Army Told After Wuhan Meet,” NDTV, 2 May, https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/no-aggressive-patrolling-along-china-border-army-told-after-wuhan-meet-1846210.

Tewary, Amarnath (2018): “RSS Can Prepare an Army within Three Days, Says Mohan Bhagwat,” Hindu, 12 February, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/rss-can-prepare-an-army-within-3-days-mohan-bhagwat/article22727198.ece.

The Fearless Indian (2015): “Ajit Doval Warns Pakistan “You Do One More Mumbai, You Lose Balochistan,” 7 January, (10th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture by Ajit Kumar Doval, Sastra University, 21 February), YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7ESR5RU3X4.

Unnithan, Sandeep (2018): “Budget Squeeze Threatens Indian Army’s Preparedness for Possible Two-front War,” India Today, 3 May, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20180514-defence-budget-squeeze-indian-army-unprepared-for-wars-1226462-2018-05-03.

Vanzara, Dahyabhai Gobarji (2013): “Read DG Vanzara’s Letter,” Times of India, 3 September, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Read-DG-Vanzaras-letter/articleshow/22262722.cms.

Vivekananda International Foundation (2013): “Press Statement on India-Pakistan Relations by Members of India’s Strategic Community,” press statement, 9 August, http://www.vifindia.org/event/report/2013/august/09/press-statement-on-india-pakistan-relations-by-members-of-india-s-strategic-community.

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http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/index.aspx?page=6

The army chief as regime spokeman?

The regime deployed two information war heavyweights over the past week to counter stone throwing Kashmiri youth. The first was the chief regime apologist, Chetan Bhagat, who writing in the Sunday Times, sought to deter stone throwers by advocating they be locked away for indulging in criminal activity. The second was the army chief, no spring chicken himself in info war having done his doctoral work on media and conflict. He advised Kashmiri youth that both stones and guns are futile since they cannot fight the army. He warned, Azadi is ‘never’ going to happen.

Two salvoes together might suggest to the stone throwing youth they are getting it right. It would be too much to expect the regime to be embarrassed - even on behalf of India - at the sorry spectacle of the army having to fire on unarmed stone pelters. Since Israel is at it too at the Gaza border, resulting at last count some 52 dead Palestinians (at the time of writing even as the figure rises with Nakba Day nearing), India is in the same boat as its role model, even if India’s figures are somewhat (thankfully) less. Nevertheless, stone throwers might read in the two info war stalwarts going at them that they have managed to somewhat disconcert the regime.

Of course, they would know that it is not a case of ‘ek dhakka aur do’ (‘give it one more push’). They don’t need the army chief to remind them that the army ‘will fight you (them) with all our (the army’s) force’. They don’t need reminding by the Underage Optimist (a sobriquet bestselling Bhagat has coined for himself) of the opportunity costs such as exacted of tourism, economy etc.

Hurriyet patriarch Geelani put it rightly that the army chief (true for Mr. Bhagat too) does not understand what’s going on. Attributing the ‘Intifada’ look-alike (the IIM-IIT graduate Bhagat helpfully informs that the word means ‘to shake off’) in Kashmir to Pakistani incitement by the Chief is a dead give way. But, to his credit, the army chief admits that he is still wracking his mind as to what motivates the youth (‘I am still trying to understand where did all that anger come from.’)

He has been at it for a year now. The last time he admitted mystification is when he hoped that the youth would take to arms, enabling the army to shoot them down without a qualm. While some youth have obliged, such as the doctoral student from Aligarh Muslim University and recently the assistant professor from the Kashmir University, most have stuck to stones. This has prevented the army chief from using tactics from Syria and Pakistan where, according to the chief, ‘they use tanks and air power in similar situations.’

Yet again a betrayal of ignorance, or, more likely, a willful distortion of reality – an info war tactic. There is little comparison between the Kashmiri insurgency and the terrorism in those countries. There the terrorists are rather well armed (as their Western backers (once) would know) and in instances hold, or have held, territory. This has required the application of additional firepower to dislodge them, necessitating the tactics involving tanks and air power. This is not the case in Kashmir. Where it was so in one instance, in Hil Kaka in Surankot, helicopters were deployed in an offensive role during Operation Sarp Vinash that had the terrorists vacate the area. India has not fought shy of using airpower in Aizwal. Given this, the army chief appears to be practicing intimidation, hoping the scenarios might scare where employment of pellet guns, snipers and bullets have not.             

Info war usually has multiple targets in the cross hairs. The army chief’s interview also had his own military constituency to influence. In his explanatory interview last year in the aftermath of awarding Leetul Gogoi – of the human shield infamy - with his commendation card, he admitted that one of his key focus areas was to keep up the morale of his force. This time too he had this to say, ‘My officer felt that he is being abandoned. I can’t let my officer feel that.’ Another officer had figured in an first information report, this time for his patrol shooting dead two stone pelters.

An institutional head having his internal constituency to fore amidst addressing a long standing national security challenge should give pause. Sympathetic commentary may have it that this is explicable given that a military chief is expected to give out the military’s position. To them, the political class has to temper the military position by taking a political – higher – line.

That said, strategic myopia that prevents looking beyond one’s nose, cannot be excused of those operating at the strategic level. The problem – admitted to sotto voce usually – is that the mentality of those climbing the military’s greasy pole seldom matures beyond their first appointment as corporal at the National Defence Academy. The mindset gets reinforced with successive appointments beginning with sergeant and cadet adjutant, and by the time they get flag rank, it is rather frozen. Bluntly put, the army chief has kept his strategic acumen rather well hidden so far.

As if on cue, he stepped in to spike yet another peace possibility. His last hatchet job was in puncturing Dnyaneshwar Sharma’s car, even as Mr. Sharma got into it last October, saying military operations will not be affected by appointment of an interlocutor. This time round it was to put the state’s political parties in their place. The 9 May all party meeting in Srinagar had promise. Their idea of a ceasefire had potential, so much so that even the otherwise comatose special representative of the union government, Mr. Missing-in-Action Sharma, admitted to a spying a ‘positive’ turn.

The army chief – true to form - quickly reminded the nation that the ceasefire idea was unmindful of the military’s concerns. He asked helplessly, “But who will guarantee that there won’t be fire at our men, at our vehicles? Who will guarantee that policemen, political workers, our men returning home on leave aren’t attacked, aren’t killed?’’ Using his shoulders to fire, his political master – who according to the sympathetic theory should have moderated the military’s position – instead jumped to clobber the budding peace initiative, virtually repeating the chief’s lines: ‘“Indian army has to firmly handle any terrorism which threatens the peace and harmony of Jammu and Kashmir as a state and of the rest of country. The army’s position is that it has to be firm on terrorism.” The lady minister can be excused for informing of the army’s position (‘The army’s position is that…’). She is learning on the job. Rather costly for national security, but it’s the price of democracy, foregrounding the flotsam and jetsam deposited in power by the Modi wave. It begs the question why did the government need the army chief as mouth piece, and, worse, why does the army chief need to fit the bill as spokesman?

The long and shot of all this is that as with its other policies – China, Pakistan, internal security, employment, Make-in-India etc – the government is also floundering on Kashmir. It is unable to finesse the exercise of force over the past three years with dividend on the table in relation to either Pakistani good behavior or Kashmiri quiescence. Force is meant to have purpose. If it is not yielding result on the lines expected, then it is being misapplied. Continuing with it is therefore insane, as a famous definition of stupidity has it. India could well claim victory and count its eggs. The Pakistani army chief has been helpfully providing the necessary peace verbiage for some six months now. The Pakistani bail out enables India to claim victory and call a truce.

However, choosing to instead continue with it – as is the case announced by the defence minister – implies that its purpose is to bludgeon a population, an Indian community and its constituents, Indian citizens. The cover of terrorism – so usefully passed on by our strategic partners, the United States and Israel – is to only figleaf. It is no wonder that chief trumpeter Chetan Bhagat warns, ‘While efforts must never stop to listen to the other side, the moment the youth chooses violence all bets are off.’ The youth have been left with little choice. The government is in an unnecessary ‘pehle aap’ (after you) situation with youth. Perhaps it is the one believing in ‘Ek  dhakka aur do’ (one more nudge). If their provincial government has no voice, the youth cannot expect to be allowed any. To deny them their choice of voice – stones – is to be complicit. The army chief needs introspect whether his spokesman role interferes with him bringing strategic sense to his ethnic cousin Doval’s table.

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/13788/Indias-Internal-Security-Unravels

India's internal security unravels

A characteristic of a modern nation state is monopoly over use of force within its boundaries. As an aspiring great power, it is odd that India has apparently lost this characteristic four years into the current Modi regime.

For a government that came to power touting its national security mindedness, it must be judged by whether it has delivered as it gets into election gear.

The evidence is not too far from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence at 7, Race Course Road. A satellite city, Gurugram, that houses north India’s IT hub, has been witness to an assault on religious freedoms, of which India has been rightly proud over much of its independent history.

Over the past month, weekly Friday prayers offered by members of India’s largest minority, it’s Muslims, have been disrupted by majoritarian fanatics. The Indian state has largely stood by, with its elected provincial chief of the area in his statements implying that offering collective prayers in public spaces serves as a provocation.

This is not atypical of what has occurred across India. An extensive recap of the disruption of law and order is not needed, but some illustrations are in order since the claim of loss of state monopoly over use of force is rather substantial.

Saffronite vigilantes, waving the national flag, for a variety of ‘causes’ ranging from anti-love jihad to cow protection are now a familiar phenomenon.

Motorcycle borne mobs disrupt Muslim neighbourhoods at will, even, in one case, when a Muslim dominated locality was forming up to observe Republic Day.

A murderer was honoured by depiction at a Ram Navmi tableau. Ram Navmi observances themselves are now graced by armed enthusiasts.

Far east, mobs took down a Lenin statue on election of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Tripura.

Violence on the sidelines of protests by the Mahars in Maharashtra early this year and by Dalits across India was engineered by the saffron brigade, out to implicate lower caste protestors for the violence.

Breakdown in rule of law is visible in the letting-off of saffronite terrorists by courts, among whom figure a police officer, Vanzara; an army officer, Purohit; a politician, Kodnani; and saffron-clad Pragya Thakur.

In Central India, police claim gunning down of 37 Maoists in Gadchiroli, amongst whom it is later found number at least 8 innocent civilians - who the police went on to claim were new recruits.

The perception of impunity is such that in Kathua a group of ruling party supporters set about attempting to set off ethnic cleansing through an ‘incident(s)’ (to quote the prime minister) of gang rape and murder of a minor victim from a minority, nomadic community. In a milder instance from Assam, ruling party affiliated people put up black flags of the Islamic State, attempting to suggests extremist Muslims are proactively seeking recruits.

Investigation agencies have tracked down no clue on the mysterious disappearance of a Muslim student, Najeeb, from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus. JNU students demonstrating against other assorted impositions by the administration have been assaulted by the police on the streets of the national capital, with woman journalists covering the event being molested by the police.

Under its head, a Modi namesake and member of the Supreme Court appointed special investigation team that spared Modi in relation to his alleged role in the Gujarat carnage, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is out to outdo the Central Bureau of Investigation, upon which the highest court conferred the sobriquet ‘caged parrot’. The NIA has been rightly called ‘blind and deaf’, albeit by an opposition political figure, Owaisi, riled at perpetrators of terror bombings in his backyard, at the Mecca Masjid, being let off due to deliberately shoddy investigation and prosecution.

In short, internal security has unraveled.

First, majoritarian nationalists are now a law unto themselves. The annual orations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh supremo, its Sarsangchalak, covering national security on Vijay Dashmi, are televised live by the national broadcaster. Mocking the army, he made the very plausible claim that his footsoldiers can mobilise within three days. A famous godman has given a clue as to what these legions could do. Speaking on the way the Supreme Court verdict could go, the Art of Living founder said that there would be bloodshed by a ‘Hindu majority’ that would not ‘allow it’.

Second, the institutions of state that are to provision internal security – the police, intelligence and investigation agencies – are playing along. This is hardly the manner of being responsive to control by the democratically elected political head. Rule of law implies professional adherence to rules, legal standards, cultural norms and morality. The inability to stand up to wrongful exercise of authority is beyond the extent as might be expected from fear alone. To be sure, the institutions had been hollowed out long ago. However, the levels of departure from the desiderata is now of the order of politicizing of law and justice institutions through subversion by right wing philosophy, cultural nationalism.

Third, those that are to oversee these institutions in their ministerial role are themselves from, and, from annual sittings with the Sangh leadership, appear to be answerable to the Parivaar. Their moorings are thus outside of the Constitution they are sworn to defend. They are the conduit for the right-wing usurpation of the state apparatus and appropriation of the state for its own ends.

To be fair to them, as believers in cultural nationalism (the Prime Minister once called himself a ‘Hindu nationalist’) and in power democratically, they feel they can re-do secularism, pluralism, inclusiveness and democracy in their image. Even if embarrassed by their zealous devotees and supporters, they cannot disown them, leave alone act against them, since they are also dependent on the Parivaar’s muscle power at election time. Where necessary, the Parivaar can be reigned in, such as after Obama’s adverse observations during his Republic Day trip occasioned by the post-elections spike in anti-Christian incidents in India. PM Modi immediately intoned against such acts, putting a stop to them. That he has been unable to get himself to issue a similar statement against anti-Muslim violence by his devotees shows up equally his unwillingness as much as his inability.

Since such a juncture has been democratically arrived at, only elections can undo it. The forthcoming elections are thus crucial, offering an opportunity to wrest the monopoly of use of force back from the Parivaar to the state from those who have bartered it away for electoral gain, power and, in their lights, for the greater glory of Hinduism. Alongside several other persuasive arguments against their continuing in power – such as the mess in foreign policy in respect of both Pakistan and China – this insight from internal security is good enough reason for showing them the door.

The problem is that the between now and elections the full implication of this loss of monopoly of force by the state and its acquisition by right wing forces will likely be on full display. The closer the regime gets to sniffing a possible roll back of the Modi wave, the more likely this denouement. Precedence exists in the initial days of PM Modi’s accession to power, when the then prime minister felt that Raj Dharma had been willfully blindsided.

The 'incident': Nothing but political

http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/archive.aspx?page=6&date1=04/26/2018

The Kathua ‘incident’ (to quote the prime minister) was not in a vacuum. The assumption of the perpetrators was that impunity was at hand, since the victim was Muslim. This impression of theirs has been long in the making. Muslims have been fair game over the past four years, victims of lynchings for eating beef or love jihad. Earlier, many have been put away for long periods for alleged participation in terror bombings, even in instances of bombings for which the Hindu perpetrators have been identified and, indeed, owned up to. Most saffron terrorists have been let off by courts lately. Those who led mob violence in Gujarat have also been left. Mr. Modi’s selective verbalizing suggested to the perpetrators that the law can be winked at. Finally, the anti-Rohingya policy of the government, with its eddies in Jammu, where a set of Rohingya Muslims are refugees, emboldened them further, making them believe that the anti-Muslim sentiment would translate in support for their supposed endeavour to drive Muslim nomads from the vicinity.

Thus, the perpetrators of the Kathua ‘incident’ believed they could get away with it. They almost did, in that a coalition partner in the state government, the BJP, far right organisations, some in the community and the lawyers’ association provided them cover. However, that they were finally caught tells that there is a reversibility in the tide that manufactured this impression in their minds. The social media backlash, largely a middle class revolt against the BJP, prompted Mr. Modi to break his silence. In crisis management mode since he characterized the dastardly deeds, when taken alongside the ‘incident’ at Unnao, as ‘incidents’. Panicked, he has since gone on to try and take the political sting out of the episode, calling from foreign soil for such ‘incidents’ not to be politicised.

But, as recounted at the outset here briefly, the ‘incident’ itself is an outcome of the politics of the last two decades, that witnessed the rise of Mr. Modi and the manufacture of the wave that brought him to power. The buck must stop with him. It is not time to shift the goal posts on politicization when the tide is turning. But Mr. Modi can be expected to say that; after all it is a fight for another five years at 7 Race Course Road.

It needs little elaboration as to how Mr. Modi bears moral responsibility. As leader of his devotees, he bears a measure of responsibility for their conduct. After all, the two state ministers who resigned from the state government for supporting the perpetrators were from his party and the Hindu Ekta Manch is part of the saffron brigade of which he is the prime champion. But the more significant part of the responsibility – which this op-ed dwells on in some detail further - owes to the manner his elevation from Gujarat to Delhi has led to what is now seen as a national ethical and moral crisis. Devotees appear to be finally de-mesmerising themselves. That it takes such ‘incidents’ to awaken them speaks for the depths India has fallen and is liable to fall in case of another Modi term.

Equally bad ‘incidents’ heralded Modi’s arrival on the scene, when he – in his reading of the Gujarat carnage – could not stop it. Even so, it was as much his abdication of Raj Dharma as the complicity of his administration and the police under him in keeping perpetrators from the gallows that set the tone for the moral decline. Even if the judiciary appears to have closed the inquiries, the jury is still out on a string of incidents thereafter, be it the killing of that state’s home minister or the series of encounter killings of Muslims supposed out to avenge the carnage by targeting Mr. Modi. This helped his constituents rally round him and made for a national profile for Mr. Modi.

The vilification of Muslims across India proceeded apace. As it has turned out, the bombings then attributed to Muslims, such as at Malegaon, were found to have saffron fingerprints. The idea behind this strategy of the saffron combine was to consolidate the Hindu vote. Mr. Modi emerged as the savior, outflanking the comatose Congress government. Its foreign policy dividend was to project Pakistan as the ‘Other’. This accounts for the BJP in opposition holding the Congress led United Progressive Alliance’s government hostage over its reaching out to Pakistan, twice over: before and after 26/11. The moral decline beginning with the lack of traction for Gujarat carnage cases, persisted with the wide acceptability of the orchestrated notion of Muslim provenance of terror. The orchestration of this canard was by the Hindutva aligned think tanks and closet cultural nationalists in the strategic community, who are now in the open and ever willing to stand up and be counted on prime time. Some have billets in the national security establishment, including one at its helm currently.

Since Mr. Modi’s coming to power in Delhi, the departure from ethical governance has only widened. As if recognizing the writing on the wall, the judiciary has fallen in line, the latest evidence being its decisions in favour of Maya Kodnani on the Gujarat carnage case and for Swami Aseemanand over the Mecca Masjid blast. Full blown political capital is made from the reactivation of the Line of Control. The phone has been kept off the hook with Pakistan since the Pathankot airfield terror attack. It is another matter that the attack itself has doubtful origin in that there remain unexplained connected happenings with it, such as the wandering of the Gurdaspur police chief in the vicinity of the border seemingly to escort the infiltrating terrorists to a prospective target. The mystery has even been acknowledged in the book of an acolyte of the former defence minister from within the strategic community, Securing India: The Modi Way.  For their part, the Kashmiris have yet again been pushed back a couple of decades.

It is easy to see that the same strategy that brought Modi to power – by creating a Hindu vote bank against an internal and external ‘other’ – continues at work while the BJP is in power. This implies that the moral responsibility for the outcome rests with the ruling party, its supporting political formations, and devotees willing to suspend disbelief. They are culpable for such a situation having come to pass. Since the ruling party has profited politically from this, it is a political matter, howsoever much the perpetrators in individual ‘incidents’ are equally personally liable.

Unfortunately for the perpetrators, the fresh breeze afoot got them. There is enough time for this breeze to pick up and gather into a storm, to blow the rulers back into the fringe whence they came. It is no wonder Mr. Modi wants the traces from the events over the past two decades – the principal one of which has been the Modi wave - to be wiped clean from the ‘incident’.

A police wallah as proto Chief of Defence Staff

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/13644/A-Policewallah-As-Proto-Chief-of-Defence-Staff

The armed forces have been delivered another blow. The national security adviser, Mr. Ajit Doval, who, as everyone knows from the hagiography that accompanies his actions, has a back ground in the police and intelligence, is now to also head among his other onerous duties, the defence planning committee. A noted analyst, Manoj Joshi, discerns the new job as equivalent to the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) or permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee.

In a way, the armed forces had this coming for two reasons. One is that they have not put their act together on this score for some three decades. The air force has always held out against a CDS like appointment. Frustrated, the army backtracked from its advocacy some mid last decade and then got back to renew its support for the appointment. The silent service, the Navy, has kept itself aloof from the controversy.

As a result, the three major committees that have looked at the matter since the turn of the century, the Arun Singh Committee as one of the four committees set up after the Kargil Review Committee recommendations was relatively clear on the CDS functions. The Naresh Chandra Committee set up by the comatose United Progressive Alliance government, was mealy mouthed in its recommendation, no doubt because it was headed by a heavy weight bureaucrat. Even the Shekatkar committee, that turned in its report to the previous defence minister, was unable to make a dent in the status quo.

If the army chief is to be believed on his ‘two front’ formulation, the need to have the three horses pull together has seldom been greater. The air force in its latest exercise, advertised as the largest ever, shifted from a focus on the western front to the eastern front midway through the exercise, underlining how seriously they take the collusive threat from India’s two adversaries.

This accentuates the need to optimize India’s resources devoted to defence. The prime minister in his first address to the commanders of the services at their conclave aboard the INS Vikramaditya had intoned as much. If this requires a head umpire over the three chiefs to have them work out of one script then the higher defence organization must have it. Service parochialisms cannot be allowed to stand in the way of national security. If and since the three services were reluctant to see eye to eye on this, then the appointment has to be thrust on them.

However, the quasi CDS is yet another stop gap measure. It is evident that it is not only service reluctance at play but bureaucratic chicanery. The bureaucrats are loath to have a high-ranking serviceman at the upper reaches of the hierarchy, not only for protocol and reasons of privilege but that the appointment would carry powers and responsibilities that they currently revel in, conferred by allocation of business rules dating to just prior to the Sino-Indian war. If the defence minister, the cabinet committee on security and the national security committee were to get a single point advice, they would not be able to play off one service against the other, that service veterans inform is a favoured pastime in the defence ministry.

The series of defence ministers over the tenure of this government – known to be short on talent - have not been able to fill the chair they occupied. The over-worked Mr. Jaitley (who has been in and out of hospitals) had two innings in the chair; Mr. Parrikar was home sick when in it; and the current one has yet to overcome her hangover as party spokesperson. That the defence planning committee has been foisted on the defence establishment suggests as much. 

The second - more significant if less visible - reason is that the defence planning committee is not so much to stream line the work and output of the defence sector as much as to revisit civilian control over the military. Every institution in the country has been hollowed out. The spate of exonerations by the courts of people involved in carnage and terror – specifically Maya Kodnani and Swami Aseemanand respectively – and the Supreme Court’s reluctance to get to grips with the mysterious death of fellow judge, Loya, suggests that the armed forces are the last institution standing. Since their professional and apolitical character makes it difficult to trammel them, as has been done with the media, police and bureaucracy, they need further lynchpins to tie them down.

The hurried setting up a defence planning council through executive order with barely a year to go to elections can only have a rationale outside of the strategic lamppost under which most would look. There is more to be done in the reset of India over the forthcoming term of the government, once the matter of elections between then and now is out of the way. The declining support in the people at large and the masses after a series of hit-wickets by the Modi government, such as demonetization, general service tax, and the laxity in condemning and action against rapes, polarization appears the only card left. Retention of power can now only be through letting the foot-soldiers of Hindutva crawl through society. On this count, the only institution left that can put the foot-soldiers of Hindutva back into the bottle needs tight control. Furthermore, the armed forces need an ideological dose of cultural nationalism, that can be safely administered when the government is back in saddle. Consequently, the committee needs to also be seen in the light of civil-military relations, in addition to any strategic sense it may make.

It is for this reason that the national security adviser, renowned as an intelligence czar, has been appointed as head of this committee. He has long had a foot in the Hindutva camp. In fact, he can be credited with organizing the support for the Modi wave within the strategic community well before it became a tide. The social media blitz of 2013-14 by the brigade of saffron trolls, that led up to the Modi tsunami, also has an intelligence man’s fingerprints all over it. With his mastery of the national security apparatus and his impeccable ideological credentials, besides a lifetime in high risk appointments, has him well suited for the post.  

The links between his erstwhile think tank and the military are deep. There are several retired members of the brass associated with the VIF. On leaving its directorship he had handed over the reins to a retired army chief. Thus, he has a constituency in the military, that in turn has amongst the ranks of its veterans some hypernationalists. In effect, he has an organic support base that would not find it odd for him to be virtually at the military apex, more or less displacing the minister. If there are doubts in the strategic community they can outshout the opposition. Not to forget, the army chief is a Doval acolyte and ethnic cousin, who owes his elevation to the rank over two of his seniors to intercession on his behalf by someone. 

It’s a job tailormade for Mr. Doval. In discussions on the CDS appointment, the usual refrain is that the appointment should carry weight in the hierarchy conscious military by being either be first among equals among the chiefs as another four-star general since, in India’s case, a five-star general makes for field marshal, a rank not readily conferred. Though Mr. Doval has cabinet rank in his capacity as national security adviser, he would be rather pleased with the arrangement on two counts. One, as a policeman he would have likely nursed a grouse against the military’s chip on the shoulder against counterparts in khakis. Two, as a military school product, he would have dreamed – as with any other cadet - of making it to general rank.

In short, the defence planning council has more to it than meets the eye. Its true role will only emerge if this government has a term following this one and then, it would not only be in better strategizing by the Indian military, but in revising the very ethos of the military.

Under the assault of social media, attention spans have contracted somewhat. But that is not any reason to worry. There are short introductions available to catch up on weighty matters, such as in the case of national security. These help in gaining a working understanding of issues outside a reader’s usual beat and on the quick, being small handbooks intended unambitiously as ‘introduction’. The Oxford series comprises some 30 paperbacks covering daunting topics such as monetary policy and capital flows and exchange rate mechanisms, alongside appealing titles such as Bollywood and Mughal painting. These are a mite bigger than OUP’s Very Short Introductions, paperbacks smaller in size, but not on that account any less in academic content. Placed strategically at airport bookstalls they provide intellectual fare to last a flight, given India’s distances. Chris Ogden’s take on India’s national security is by the yardstick of ‘one for the road’, a good buy. Ogden lectures on Asian security at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. His earlier books include Indian Foreign Policy and the more interestingly—if elaborately—named, Hindu Nationalism and the Evolution of Contemporary Indian Security: Portents of Power.

The format of the series does not permit the expert to talk down to the reader, but to engagingly expand the horizons of learning. It is a bonus if the reader goes on to conquer more crests, such as perusing intellectual terrain mapped in the bibliography.

Sensibly, Ogden does not attempt to overwhelm the reader with his learning. The reader does come away with the satisfaction of having gained a measure of the headlines, since anything newsworthy has national security connotations. As Ogden reminds, national security has expanded from its military centric connotations to virtually include anything and everything, coopted into security studies by subject matter designations as energy security, environmental security, economics, social cohesion, etc. Lately, as Ogden notes, pollution too has been corralled into being an issue in national security—inter-alia—through its effects on health. Even so, territory and big battalions continue to be significant to national security.

Ogden very usefully covers national security through the constructivist lens, in that he locates India in its history, identity, culture, perception and the interaction. He takes a look at how India has changed and is changing, believing that its history has embedded a certain set of values, principles and behaviours. India’s geography, political underpinnings and social foundations have collectively formed for India a unique identity. This makes for cultural traits that distinguish India, giving it an exclusivity from the rest. India’s perceptions shape its national security threats and interests; and, finally, he characterizes as ‘interaction’, the interplay of Indian perceptions with perspectives of others in its region and global neighbours.

An additional theoretical motif he uses is the well-known Maslow hierarchy of needs. While it is usually related to individual needs—from survival to self-actualization—here Ogden adapts it for the nation. Doing so he espies India as subsuming multiple Indias with a portion of it barely surviving and—incongruously—a small elite reaching for the stars. This is significant to his book title negating the conclusion that India’s national security story is not so much about security but about India’s insecurity. This is the key take away from the book, especially for readers conditioned by prime time’s coverage of Mr. Modi’s half century of flights off to some or other capital that India is the next best thing that happened to global politics.

Ogden seems to caution—and timely—that India might well end up as a wannabe great power on two counts. The first appears to be a holdover from his previous book on the influence of Hindutva on India’s strategic culture and the second, on India’s continuing inability to pull a sizable minority of its people out of poverty. The latter inability appears to be getting more pronounced in the Modi era of jobless growth rates—themselves decelerated by gambits such as demonetization and GST—and crony capitalism. This boosts reliance on the former, papering over challenges under a revised concept of nation—Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan. The two taken together, being mutually reinforcing, make for Indian insecurity.

This insecurity is accentuated since India is not quite looking that way at all. Ogden outlines three domains of security—democracy and secularism, sovereignty and territory and modernization and great power. In the first domain the major threats are militancy, separatism and communalism. The threats in the second domain are ones Indians are routinely made familiar with by the ongoing firing along the Line of Control with Pakistan and the periodic incursions by China into areas of contested versions of the border. It is in the third domain that the real sting of Ogden’s work lies. He says that ‘at the heart of this domain the central fear is that of India’s destiny being not fulfilled which will not thus only impact on her status but also impede her self-sufficiency and autonomy in the world.’ This cautionary word needs being taken seriously by national security minders and their political supervisors. Unfortunately, that cannot be the case so long as India is in an ideological thrall, fighting off medieval monsters internally (witness the hysteria around Bollywood’s ‘Padmavat’) and, externally, sidling up to a hyper-power poised on dotage.

Two mundane—if inescapable—chapters make up the rest of the book. One deals with internal security and the second with security in its external dimension. As can be anticipated, these cover the threats and actors and their efficacy. The internal security chapter is enhanced by its coverage of ‘societal issues’. Whereas he is appreciative of India’s strides on the overall welfare front, he rightly points to democratic deficits such as on human rights (blinding and killings of stone throwers in Kashmir), quality public goods as education and health, minority security (lynchings by the cow brigade) and gender equality (leading to some 66 million missing women).The external security chapter has three quarters of an A5 page on nuclear forces. This is to minimize perhaps the greatest national security threat facing South Asia, especially when the Army Chief threatens to call Pakistan’s ‘nuclear bluff’ and Pakistan more or less says ‘bring it on’.

Ogden’s conclusion from his discussion of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—physiological, safety, psychological, esteem and self-actualization—situated to India as a polity and nation is most apt. While Maslow’s individual graduates from a lower level to the next, with met needs at each enabling a reaching out for higher order needs, India—to Ogden—appears to be meeting all needs simultaneously. He advises that ‘it may be in India’s national interest to fulfil Maslow’s original intentions of first fully meeting basic needs, as only then will New Delhi be able to genuinely achieve its great power aspirations.’ Is anyone in Sardar Patel Bhawan, the seat of India’s National Security Council Secretariat, listening?